GOP consultant in Arizona pulls strings to get Green Party on Texas ballot

AUSTIN - The liberal Green Party's uphill battle to get on the
Texas ballot this fall has been fueled by a surprising benefactor:
an out-of-state Republican consultant with a history of helping
conservative causes and GOP candidates.

If the state validates the petitions the consultant arranged for
the party - for free - a Green Party slate could drain support from
Democrat Bill White in his bid to oust Republican Gov. Rick
Perry.

What's unknown is who paid for the previously undisclosed
arrangement, pieced together by The Dallas Morning News. Green
Party officials said they don't know who funded the effort. The
Perry campaign denied any involvement. And Arizona Republican
operative Tim Mooney, who set up the petition drive, refused to
say.

Green Party officials said an outside group gathered the 92,000
signatures and gave them as "a gift" to the party, which delivered
them to the secretary of state, who oversees Texas elections. If
the secretary of state determines that enough of them are valid,
the party will be able to field a slate of candidates for statewide
offices for the first time since 2002.

"It's good news for Rick Perry, in the sense that the Green
Party label draws votes away from White rather than Perry," said
Rice University political science professor Mark Jones. "It's
likely to take a small amount from White. This is only going to
have an effect if it's a very close election."

Perry campaign spokesman Mark Miner said the governor's campaign
had nothing to do with the petition-gathering effort and knew of no
supporter who might have bankrolled it.

"But it's a democracy, and they're free to run," he said. "If
they have the signatures to quality for the ballot, they'll be part
of the race."

Restrictions in state law make it difficult for minor parties
and independents to get on the ballot; experts who study ballot
access say few states make it harder. One solution is hiring paid
petition-gatherers, but the process is expensive.

Christina Tobin, who heads a Chicago-based petition-gathering
company called Free and Equal Inc., said she was approached by
Mooney to collect signatures for the Green Party of Texas.

Another group, Take Initiative America, based in Missouri, would
provide payment, Mooney said.

Mooney estimated the cost at $200,000, but declined to give a
specific figure or say who put up the money.

"Take Initiative America, being a nonprofit, doesn't disclose
its donors, nor is it required to," said Mooney, who has little
history of working in Texas. "Take Initiative America is a
nonpartisan organization. They'd like to see everybody have a
chance to get on the ballot - the more choices the better."

In 2004, Mooney was part of an effort in several states to put
Ralph Nader on the presidential ballot, which analysts say
benefited George W. Bush by taking votes from Democrat John
Kerry.

That year, Mooney also ran a get-out-the-vote operation for the
Bush-Cheney ticket in Florida.

Asked last week whether the Texas petition drive was aimed at
helping Perry, Mooney said: "I don't know if it benefits any
individual person or whatever. It's all up to what the individual
voter wants.

"The end result," he said, "is that if these signatures prove to
be valid, Texans are going to have another choice. Whether they
exercise that choice is purely up to Texans."

But it's clear that the Green Party is much more likely to draw
voters from the left than from Perry's conservative base of
support.

The party supports raising taxes on and boosting environmental
regulation on corporations, abortion rights, same-sex marriage,
publicly financed elections, universal health care and requiring
schools, hospitals and the military to provide vegetarian
meals.

Minor parties typically draw a very small percentage of the vote
in statewide races. But if the battle between Perry and White is
close, as some analysts expect, the campaigns will be counting on
each ballot.

White campaign spokeswoman Katy Bacon said it was premature to
comment on how the help for the Green Party was arranged. But of
Perry, she said, "we do know he'll say and do anything."

Tough restrictions

Kat Swift, state coordinator for the Texas Green Party, said
restrictions in Texas - including a short period for
petition-gathering and a requirement that signers be registered
voters who did not participate in the primary - are tough for third
parties to overcome.

"If it hadn't been for that donation, we wouldn't have been on
the ballot," she said.

In an online solicitation to supporters, the Green Party offered
petition-gatherers $4 per signature, thanks to what the party on
its Facebook page called "last minute fairy tale funding." At that
rate, the effort would have cost between $200,000 and $350,000.

She said the Green Party will report the signatures as an
in-kind contribution on its next campaign finance report. Take
Initiative America will appear as the donor. No law requires the
group to disclose its contributors.

Swift said she has no concern that the funding to get her party
on the ballot might have come from Republicans who don't share the
party's liberal philosophy on issues.

"Wherever the money came from doesn't bother me," she said. "If
it came from Democrats, which I doubt, or if it came from
Republicans - whoever made this donation supports an open ballot,
open democracy. And that's the whole point. People are trying to
open the ballot to increase democracy and so, who cares how they
vote?"

Mooney and Take Initiative America have partnered in several
ballot-initiative efforts. In each case, Mooney or another
political operative facilitates an arrangement in which an
anonymous donor provides money to Take Initiative America, which
then pays a company such as Free and Equal to collect
signatures.

In the case of the Texas Green Party, he said, "I was involved
putting A and B together."

Take Initiative America was involved in a Republican effort in
2008 to change the way California distributes its Electoral College
votes from winner-take-all to proportional. The ballot initiative,
which failed, was designed to help the GOP presidential
nominee.

Typically, the funding source remains anonymous. But Paul
Singer, a hedge-fund millionaire and top fundraiser for Republican
presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani, publicly acknowledged giving
$175,000 to Take Initiative America as the sole backer for the
initiative.

School spending

In 2005, Mooney was involved in Texas and other states to
promote a requirement that school districts spend two-thirds of
their money in the classroom.

The effort was primarily bankrolled with a $1 million pledge
from Patrick Byrne, a Utah entrepreneur and supporter of school
vouchers.

In a memo, Mooney listed a series of "political benefits" for
Republicans - including sowing dissension among state education
unions and diverting money from "the education establishment." He
said the issue would give Republicans "greater credibility on
public education issues" and boost prospects for GOP-backed ideas
like school vouchers.

Five years ago, Perry issued an order requiring that districts
earmark 65 percent of their funds for instruction, an issue he
campaigned on when he won re-election in 2006. The Legislature
repealed the requirement last year.

Mooney is currently directing a business-backed initiative to
amend several state constitutions to require a secret-ballot
election for union representation. Critics say the effort is aimed
at weakening unions, a major source of support for Democrats.
Texas, which prohibits a union-membership requirement for work,
isn't a target.

The Texas secretary of state is reviewing the Green Party
petitions and is expected to decide this month whether it submitted
44,000 valid signatures as required by law.

Jones, the Rice political scientist, said the Green candidate
will give voters "another option on the left."

"If they don't vote for Bill White, their options are a
Libertarian or Rick Perry. This gives them another option," he
said. "Given the disenchantment with incumbents in general and
mainstream politics, it's likely to get 1 or 2 percent. So that's
bad news for White."

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